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The reason you aren’t writing #4

Imagine a bunch of bumble bees in a jar. The lid’s closed tight, and they want OUT. Frenzied, ricocheting, banging off the sides of the glass, slamming into each other. Getting more and more agitated.

This is your brain when you have TOO MANY ideas and thoughts. This is what happens when you hang on to those thoughts and ideas, thinking you can write it out in your mind, thinking you can figure it all out and have it all in order when you “have time” to get it all on the page.

The truth is, you won’t figure it out UNTIL you get what’s in there onto the page. So set the angry bees free, and do a word dump.

This may very well be my favorite phase of writing. It’s when I get to take all those crazy, frenzied, non-stop, LOUD thoughts in my head and purge them. Word dumping is similar to freewriting, but word dumping is more conscious.

Unload onto the page or screen (keyboard is a-okay for this process) every thought that comes to you about your character, story, scene, or plot without worrying that it makes sense, connects in any meaningful way, or has anything to do with your current plot or character trajectory.

Just get it all out. You can shape it later, much like a potter or a sculptor would. (I know, I’m mixing my metaphors… But you get what I’m getting at. Set the bees free, then throw the clay. All right?!) When a potter sits down at her wheel to start a new piece, she knows that a bowl or a vase or a cup won’t magically appear. She must first throw the clay to have something to work with.

Likewise, Taoists believe that a sculpture already exists in a block of marble and it’s the sculptor’s job to remove what isn’t needed. Get your thoughts outside yourself; then and only then will you be able to know what you’re working with and what you don’t need.